Madam, I'm Adam
by Isobel Morgan
Summary: 90's series. My take on a backstory for Adam.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise is mine etc etc etc

I'm also not Australian so if there are any inaccuracies in this, I hope they don't spoil the story.

**Madam, I'm Adam**.

It had, once, been just an ordinary house, sitting among identical houses on an ordinary street. But, as more time went on and fewer people braved living in it, the more it was known as 'the old Newman house.'

A lot of houses had history, events that had occurred within their walls.

For some, that was a draw, morbid fascination and the like but this one seemed to hold onto what had happened more strongly. Even those who didn't know the story claimed they could feel something wrong. People who scoffed at ghost stories, the idea that walls could hold memories, echo past trauma back at new inhabitants, still registered that there was something wrong with the house, and so it stood unsold. Renters tried it out, but none stayed long and neighbours didn't try and stop them leaving. Even as time went by, and new neighbours came, those that hadn't been there when it happened, had never met Theresè, Mark and their boy, the story remained.

_- Yeah, I remember them. Lived a few doors down, nice couple. She was a doctor, or a dentist, something like that. He worked in the city; not sure what he did, but he wore a suit, had a nice car, so must've been pretty hotshot, yeah? They'd only been here a few months when - you know. The boy? Can't say I ever spoke to him, not properly. Quiet sort. No, no trouble from any of them, total shock when it happened. _

_Did I see anything? No, nothing, I was at work. No, I haven't seen the boy since either, heard he totally disappeared. Hardly surprising, really…_

The boy sat on the beach and gazed out to sea.

Something he'd done so many times before it was hardly remarkable, and he tried to hold onto that normality, cling to the fact that although his world had been shattered, the rest of it continued as if nothing had happened.

The sound of the waves was calming, something he'd known all his life.

He drew his legs in to his chest, arms lying across his knees, his chin resting on top, and stared at the blue, blue sea, stretching on forever.

There was nothing but the here and now. His past was gone, obliterated, nothing to go back to, and the future, it seemed, had evaporated along with it, to be replaced by this incomprehensible situation he now found himself in. It was too much to take in.

Just what had happened to his family, his home, would have been enough to reduce him to a state of shock, without being snatched out of there and inexplicably finding himself in the ocean, washing ashore on this Island that made no sense.

Life before hadn't always been easy, but compared to this, it had been a breeze.

So what now?

He didn't know, so he just sat and he stared.

_- The Newman boy? Yes, he was a student here, transferred in a few months back. Bright kid, too. Good scores on his VCE assessments, his teachers had high hopes for him. Uni, good career, the lot. __Such a shame what happened._

_I beg your pardon?_

_How dare you come in here and accuse one of my students of something like that?_

_No, I do not believe what some people are saying. I don't know why he disappeared, but that doesn't mean a thing! There is no way that boy murdered his own parents!_

_Now get out, before I call the __police! _

_Goddamn gutter press…_

Would it be easier to take in without an alien spaceship being involved?

Would that make it more normal, if such a word could be applied to his situation?

Maybe, but then without the ship, he wouldn't have any answers at all.  
Some of it, over time, he was figuring out for himself. That whatever it was that had happened to him, personally, the changes within him, had always been going to happen. He'd always been different, that was no surprise to learn; he'd felt that way all his life. Thought that some of it came from moving around so much, for Dad's job, never staying anywhere for long, never settling anywhere or fitting in. Mostly, it had never bothered him too much; he just got on with his life the best he could, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that something was missing.

But just as his life was reaching the point where he was starting to take control of it, making his own choices, learning who he was – or so he thought – this had happened. More than one thing, really, all at once, too much to take in, so he focused on himself, the things he'd learned he was capable of. Tested them, discovering his limits and pushing against them. Found after a while, that he could teleport - as the Ship called it, when it planted thoughts in his brain in a way that should be unnerving but was only half as strange as the rest of what his life had become - at will, could, if he chose, go back home.

Only he didn't have a home. Not anymore.

"_Hey guys!" he called out, pushing open the back door. _

"_I'm home!"_

"_Adam, run!" his mother screamed, sounding almost nothing like his mother, her voice contorted with terror._

"_Get out, run!"_

_Shock grabbed hold of him first, freezing him so that he had no chance of avoiding the masked man who appeared through the kitchen door like something from a horror film. The man punched him, a fist driven viciously into his gut that knocked the wind from him, leaving him defenseless as the man dragged him into the living room, throwing him down beside his parents. Both were already battered and bleeding, the marks from the blows inflicted upon them clear on their faces._

_Stunned, Adam looked up at the three masked men who'd invaded his home, two bearing shotguns. What the h__ell was going on? A robbery? _

_He'd heard of home invasions by armed robbers, but here, in his family's home? They were nothing special in the __neighbourhood__, not poor, but not exactly rich either. _

_They had nothing to take that was worth this level of force, surely?_

_His father was attempting to say something to that effect to the men, explaining that he and his family wouldn't resist, there was no need for violence, that the men could take anything and go, just please, don't hurt his family. _

"_Well, that's up to you, ain't it? What you got?"_

"_We – we have some cash in the study, locked in the desk."_

_Mark exchanged a look with his wife._

"_A few hundred dollars. The key's there, on the ring with my car keys"_

_Mark gestured to the bunch of keys the first man was holding. Adam recognised the keyring as the one he'd made for his Dad in art class, when he was nine. _

"_Okay, what else?" _

_The man threw the keys at one of his accomplices, the unarmed man, who went off to ransack Theresè and Mark's study._

"_Um, I don't know. We don't keep a lot of valuables…"_

_The man stepped up to Mark, shoving the barrel of the shotgun closer to his face._

"_Think real closely, now. You don't get a second chance."_

"_I have some jewellery." _

_Theresè raised her hands, as if trying to ward off any harm to her husband._

"_On my dressing table. My mother's rings, a few brooches. I don't know what they're worth, but-"_

"_That'll do. Fetch."_

_He gestured to the second man, who also disappeared._

"_What else?"_

"_Nothing else, nothing hidden. Look, take anything you want, but we don't have some big secret stash-"_

"_Be sure you don't. Cos if there's anything here, we'll find it."_

_They'd already ransacked the living room; that much Adam could tell. Had his parents come home and disturbed them in the act? If they'd all been just a little later home, could all this have been avoided?_

_The unarmed man came back from the study, clutching a handful of dollars._

"_Anything else?" the first man demanded._

_His colleague shook his head._

"_Bunch a books, nothing more."_

"_Search the rest of the house. Be thorough, but quick. We ain't got all day."_

_The man dumped the money on top of a pile of things – Adam saw his father's wallet there, his mother's purse, his own camera, a present from his grandmother before she'd died earlier that year - and went out again. Adam could hear crashing noises coming from upstairs as the intruders hunted through the house. What were they hoping to find? Gold bars piled up in a safe? The Mona Lisa?_

_Adam stared at the shotgun the man was holding, the muzzle pointed at his family. If he was quick, maybe he could grab it, wrestle it from the man and turn it on him. _

_But then what? Shoot him? He'd never fired a gun in his life, didn't know how, and up 'til now he'd never wanted to, hated violence. And as to whether he could go through with it, even to protect his parents…_

_The man caught him looking._

"_Wanna try your luck, kid?"_

_Adam looked up at the eyes, partly hidden by the mask, of the man threatening his parents. They seemed amused at the idea of the long-haired, quiet teenager attacking him, secure in the fact that as long as he held the gun, he was in charge._

_Adam didn't like that. _

_He could feel something tingling at the very edge of his senses, a kind of intuition he'd become accustomed to but never fully understood. The more he stared up at the man, the more the sensation grew within his mind, like something pushing its way out from within his brain, shouting at him to see something he'd missed. It made no sense, but Adam couldn't ignore it. This was more than just fear for his family, but what was it? _

_The man's attention had wandered away from Adam already, categorising him as no threat, more interested in the loot his accomplices had brought back._

_Which wasn't much._

"_This it?" he yelled, and Adam wondered how no-one outside the house had heard them; the house was detached, but no great distance from the neighbours yet they didn't seem to care about being overheard._

"_I told you, we don't keep valuables in the house. You have the bank cards; that's all the money we have."_

"_Yeah, right. House like this? Car like that in the drive?"_

"_It's a company car! I don't own it!" _

_Mark's frustration was clear. _

"_Look, I don't know what you were expecting to find, but we're just a normal family, we don't have anything much worth taking!"_

"_All sentimental value, that it?"_

"_Yes!"_

_The man eyed Theresè in a way that sent a shudder through Adam._

"_I can see why. Wife like yours, I'd be 'sentimental' too." _

_Theresè returned his stare bravely, trying to mask her revulsion in the hope of protecting her family._

"_Please, you have what you came for. Leave us alone."_

_There was no reply as the three men bagged up their finds in Adam's sports bag, then the leader raised his shotgun to cover them._

"_Alright, we're done. Up, all of you."_

_The Newmans didn't move; Adam could sense the uncertainty radiating from his parents, a feeling he shared._

"_I said get up! Do you want me to shoot you all?"_

_Exchanging glances, the family did as they were told._

"_Get in the bedroom; we'll lock you in so you don't go getting any ideas about calling the cops, right?"_

_The buzzing in Adam's head was getting worse, rising to a crescendo that made it hard to think. He could feel the satisfaction, the superiority crashing around in the man's vile mind; he held the gun, he had the power. He could make them do what he wanted. Stupid little people, nothing to him, he could do anything, their lives were his…_

_Without any notion of how he knew, Adam realised with absolute certainty that this man meant to kill them all. The intruder already had it visualised in his head, the bloodied bodies of Adam and his parents lying slumped on the floor after he shot them, and before Adam had thought about what he was doing, he was hurling himself at the man, grabbing his hands and shoving the gun upwards just in time._

_Diverted from its intended target, Mark, the shot blasted a hole in the ceiling, plaster raining down on the room. _

_Bellowing in anger at his missed kill, the man shoved Adam away, belting him in the shoulder with the shotgun and knocking him to the ground before he pumped and fired the gun again._

_This time, it didn't miss. _

_The roar of the gun was deafening, but Adam could still hear his mother's screams as they murdered Mark right in front of her, the names of her husband and son the only things that were clear in the panicked mass of her mind._

_Shock and absolute disbelief filled Adam's brain. This couldn't be happening; what of this was real? He could hear everything his mother was thinking, shards of sadistic thought were escaping from the minds of the intruders and lodging within his own. There was no way out of this, it was happening so fast, the man was pumping the shotgun again and Adam couldn't move, the other intruders were kicking him as he lay on the floor, unable to get up, to stop the man from shooting his mother the same as he'd shot his father. Adam knew he was yelling but he couldn't hear the sound of his own voice over the tumult of voices, both aloud and unspoken filling the room and his brain. Panic and horror flooded through him; there was no escape, these people had killed his parents, __**murdered**__ them, in cold blood, for no reason and now the gun was turning his way, there was no way out, this was it, he was going to die…_

_There was a blinding flash of light, so bright it dazzled the three men standing in the Newmans' living room, seared into their brains, and when they could see again, the kid had gone, vanished. _


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise is mine etc etc etc

I'm also not Australian so if there are any inaccuracies in this, I hope they don't spoil the story.

**2.**

He didn't cry. It hurt too much for that.

He'd never had much family; now he had none at all.

Just himself. Sitting on a beach, watching the sea.

Wondering what the hell he was going to do now. He knew he couldn't sit there forever, but his mind supplied no other suggestion. He'd explored the ship – it remained frustratingly obtuse and only hinted at the answers surrounding it, but Adam couldn't bring himself to care, not yet.

He had no idea how long he'd been there, on this crazy island in the middle of nowhere. No notion of what had happened in his house after he'd managed to escape.

Didn't matter.

But yet some part of him realised he had to think of something – so far, he'd been sleeping on the beach, wearing the same clothes he'd arrived in, hadn't eaten in however long. And he knew he hadn't survived just to sit here and starve.

So he got to his feet, closed his eyes, and teleported.

The living room had been stripped bare – presumably SOCOs - even the carpet was gone, and Adam didn't want to linger. He went to the kitchen first, hunting through cupboards – the fridge was now empty, so someone must've come in and cleaned it out, before the food went bad. Adam found he couldn't bring himself to care.

There was a packet of chocolate bars – that would do. There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey on top of the fridge and he took that too. He'd never been that bothered about drinking, but if ever there was a time to test the theory of alcohol blotting out your situation, it was now.

Feeling like he was trespassing in his own house, Adam went upstairs, keeping his footsteps light. Clothes first – he had a hiking backpack under the bed, so he filled that with whatever came to hand.

Rummaging in the closet, he came across the tent, buried at the back. Hadn't used it in ages; none of the sort-of friends he'd made since moving here were into camping. He took that too, with the sleeping bag, a couple of pillows.

Eventually a small pile of items built up on the floor, alongside the abandoned schoolbooks, revision timetables; things from his former life, of no use to him now. He had no intention of going back to that.

Even without everything that had happened – he may have been standing back in his house, but Adam couldn't face up to thinking about that, not properly – he couldn't just go back to school. Mostly, he'd just been ignored at school, another hard-working kid who preferred his own company, but now he was some psychic teleporting freak of nature, whatever the ship called it, he couldn't just sit back down and carry on like nothing had changed. He didn't even feel human anymore, couldn't fit back in with normal people, couldn't even pretend to.

So engrossed in shoving things into the backpack was he, Adam didn't hear the door swinging open, didn't realise there was someone else there until they spoke.

"So you are alive then."

Adam dropped what he was holding, stepping back in startlement, heart thumping.

But he pulled himself back under control quickly.

"Mrs McClusky."

Adam's neighbour took in the state of the boy in front of her.

The charming, cheerful and quietly confident young man she remembered, the boy she'd grown fond of, was no longer there, it seemed. Something had broken, which was hardly surprising.

"You know, you had a lot of people worried. Where have you been, Adam?"

"I - don't know," was the honest answer.

"You don't know?"

The woman's eyebrows raised to her carefully set grey hair.

"Adam, what happened to you? Were you here, when?"

Adam nodded, dropping his eyes.

The woman raised her hands, wanting to put her arms around him, to comfort him, but lowered them again.

"I'm so sorry."

Sharon McClusky had lived in the same street for more than thirty years, raised her children there, let her grandchildren go out to play by themselves. And in all that time, she'd never even heard of anything happening like what had happened to the Newmans. This was a safe place, low crime rate.

When she'd come back from shopping to find police cars everywhere, crime scene tape surrounding her neighbours' house, it had been the most horrifying, most surreal moment of her life. Nobody deserved to have that happen to them; the Newmans were a nice family, perfect neighbours who kept their lawns tidy and their music down, people who were always happy to stop and chat, to help out. They'd kept themselves to themselves, to a certain extent, and Sharon had respected that.

She certainly hadn't put up with any vicious gossip from the bystanders who'd appeared out from nowhere as soon as the 'Police: Do Not Cross' barriers went up.

There were a few eyewitnesses who'd seen the gunmen drive off, but that hadn't stopped speculation that, because he was missing, it had been Adam himself who'd committed the atrocity. Yes, people had secrets, they could surprise you with what they were capable of, but this boy could not, ever, have done something like that.

He'd survived, escaped somehow, and he was safe. That was what mattered.

And now here he was, packing a bag with every indication of disappearing again.

"Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Sort of."

"Will you come back?"

Adam shook his head

"Adam, please. Think about this. I know it's hard right now, but you have your future to think of. Not just your schooling, but everything. Don't throw it all away because of what these people did."

"I can't. It – just doesn't feel right. I can't stay here."

"Then just speak to the police. Tell them what happened. They caught the men who did it, but if you testified, that would put them away for sure..."

"I didn't see anything. They were wearing masks… please Mrs McClusky. I just can't."

"There are still people who care about you. You don't have to deal with this on your own."

"I-"

Adam couldn't put how he was feeling into words. Couldn't tell her what was really going on.

"Look."

Mrs McClusky crossed the room, put a maternal hand on Adam's arm.

"You don't have to answer to anyone, just, please, take care of yourself. Please, Adam."

He met her eyes, and it just broke her heart to see the haunted look in them; she couldn't even imagine.

"I'll do my best."

There was a spark that remained of the boy she'd known, and that gave her hope.

That he didn't want to stay, she could understand. That she couldn't help was hard, but he wasn't a child anymore; she had to let him make his own choices.

"They'll always be someone here for you, if you need them," she told him, and then she left him to it.

She kept an eye on the house, but she didn't see him come back out.

A Tomorrow Person.

It sounded crazy, even though he knew, deep down, what it really meant.

All that stuff about evolution; he didn't feel especially evolved. So what use were these new abilities, these superpowers?

Maybe he should get a costume and fight crime.

A stab of mental anguish shot through him as the memories flashed before him once more. What use would these abilities have been then, had he been able to control them? He could have teleported himself to safety, maybe his parents too, but he couldn't stop armed robbers anymore than a – a regular human.

He had psychic abilities he wouldn't have believed were real only a matter of days ago, but he wasn't Bruce Wayne; couldn't start battling cartels and Mafia. Not just because he was basically a teenage student with no idea how anyone would even start to go about something like that, but because he was starting to suspect that what made him different to other people went deeper than just these new abilities.

His fingers traced the scar on his side; the shark bite.

He'd told people he'd dropped the knife rather than admit he just couldn't bring himself to use it. It had been stronger than just a regular conscience; a deep taboo he couldn't break, a compulsion that seemed driven by instinct.

He'd wondered, when confronted by a man with a gun, if he could take it from him and use it against him, and Adam thought now that he probably really couldn't have. Even to save his parents. Even to save his own life. It didn't seem to make sense to have an instinct that went against self-preservation, but then what else made sense about his life right now?

He needed time to learn to understand, to cope with everything that had happened to him, and this place, as crazy as it was, in some ways was also the best place for that.

It was quiet, there was almost everything he needed. And above all, he felt kind of … welcome. It wasn't a home – you needed a family for it to be a home – but it felt like he was supposed to be there, and that was more than he could say for anywhere else right then.

So he would stay on the island, and practise his new abilities; the better he got at using them, the more chance he had of using them for the right purposes, whatever they turned out to be.

Maybe fighting crime wasn't such a stupid notion. His parents had instilled in him a strong sense of right and wrong, yet he hadn't been able to face up to testifying against the men who'd killed his family, ensuring that justice was served.

Was that cowardice? He'd never thought he'd back down from a challenge, but this was too personal, too much. And it wasn't just the court that he couldn't face up to; it was the questions. The lawyers, the press, people who'd known him and people who just wanted to know. He'd seen it before, whenever anything like this happened. And on top of that, there was the other thing that had happened to him, that he couldn't mention to anyone, let alone explain.

'Breaking out.'

Not a phrase he particularly cared for, but it did the job.

Discovering he could teleport would, in other circumstances, have been astonishing, wonderful, and part of him still delighted in doing it, pushing himself to see what he could do with this skill - he'd even found himself practising tumbling on the beach, when he couldn't think of anything else to do, something he hadn't tried since gym class, incorporating it into his new teleporting skills.

It felt right, natural and it got easier the more he did it, so that he barely had to think about it and it would happen, even if he was travelling across the world. The telepathy was more difficult to practise; he needed another person, another Tomorrow Person at that, and apart from the ship, with its half-conscious transmissions, there wasn't anyone.

But when others came – and they had to; there had to be others like him, there had to be. This ship, it never gave clear answers, didn't even use real words when it communicated, but it hinted that it had been waiting for those like him, and it wouldn't do that if he was the only one.

And when they came, then maybe he could learn and he could help them too. They wouldn't have to stumble about blindly like he had.

After all, if they truly were the future, then they had a lot to live up to.

He didn't have any real way to keep track of how long he lived like that, alone on a crashed, buried spaceship on a deserted island – and it was most definitely deserted; he explored every inch. Long enough to find a certain peace within himself, an acceptance that this was his life now, who he was. That wasn't to say he didn't still mourn; he might not quite be human anymore, but his heart still was.

But he had found that, within himself, the same quiet strength he'd always had remained, the little voice that told him he needed to keep on down the path he was on, even if he didn't know where it was going.

And then quite suddenly, Adam knew, with absolute certainty, that he wasn't the only one anymore.

He'd been getting odd flashes for days, intuitive sensations he couldn't name or understand, and the Ship seemed to be getting that too, lighting up and making peculiar noises. And so Adam had taken to sitting within the Ship, eyes closed, his every new sense stretching as much as he could, not really knowing what he was doing and if it made any difference, but he had to try.

And then, with no ceremony, there it was sitting in his mind like it had always been there.

_Lisa_.

Who was she? Adam could tell she was here, on the Island, had only just teleported here, landing in the sea as he had, and was making her way up the beach.

His first impulse was to go up to her immediately, but he held back, something inhibiting him.

How to introduce himself, to explain?

A memory flashed before him; his twelve-year-old self awkwardly asking his mother's advice on how to talk to a girl he liked. He couldn't remember the girl in question now – Danielle in Shepparton, maybe, or perhaps Laura in Sydney; they'd moved a lot around that time.

"_Just be yourself," his mother had said, somewhat predictably. _

"_Just go up to her and say 'Madam, I'm Adam.'"_

_And then she'd laughed, not just at the palindrome that was an old family joke but proud that her son was growing up and she reached out to tickle him until he laughed too._

Okay, so maybe not quite that approach. But being himself was the only option really – she was like him, so wouldn't she know if he was lying, even to protect her? And if she was going through the same he had when he broke out, then she'd be confused and scared enough. He had to be the one to make this easier on her, was responsible for showing her some normality could remain despite everything else. And that meant keeping his past private; there was no need to burden her with anything more and if he could show her that he was, underneath, just a regular guy, the same Adam Newman he'd been before everything kicked off, then that might be for the best.

He heard the hatch open, up above – maybe he should have intervened, stopped her being pulled down the chute like that. It wasn't the best introduction to the Ship, after all, but it was too late now. She was on the Ship – he could see her now and almost hear her thinking; her newly awoken mind spilling out half-thoughts in a confused haze.

Stepping out from where he stood in shadow, Adam prepared himself to meet the girl who may be the only other person in the world like himself.

"Hi," he said.

Lisa turned around, and Adam knew that, despite everything, it was going to be okay.

Tomorrow awaited.


End file.
